Document processing method and system, and computer-readable recording medium having document processing program recorded therein

ABSTRACT

A computer-implemented method and system for processing a document such as a structured document in which information such as a term, name and belonging department is used as shared information and word consistency or modification can be automatically and easily reflected on all documents. In the document processing method, a shared information editing program edits shared information shared information frequently described in a plurality of documents, a shared information storage program stores the edited shared information in a secondary memory, a shared information list-up program lists up the shared information for each information type, a structured document editing program edits a structured document to describe a link to the shared information selected from the edited shared information listed up, a structured document storage program stores the structured document in the secondary memory, and a structured document output program reads out the shared information and structured document from the secondary memory and embeds the contents of the shared information in the structured document for its display or printout.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to techniques for creating and processinga document with use of a word processor or personal computer for itsdisplay and print, and more particularly, to a technique for processinga document which uses information that frequently appears in thedocument as shared information.

For the purpose of efficiently sharing and re-using documentinformation, a recent active move is to use such a document language asa standard generalized markup language (SGML) or XML to obtain andutilize a document.

Since a document prepared in a structured document language can beprepared by dividing the document into its structural elements asdocument parts for editing and describing links to the respective parts,it is easy for the document parts to be shared with another document orto re-use another document on every part basis.

When it is desired to display or print the link-described documenthaving such links to the parts described therein, the document isconverted to a document having the contents of the document parts of theother link-destination document embedded in the locations, and thendisplayed or printed.

To this end, a conventional editor for editing such a document providesa means for designating a document part as a part of the other documentto describe a link to the document in the editing document.

When such a document editor is used, it can facilitate such an operationthat a figure, which is prepared in a functional specification asanother document, can be re-used, for example, during editing of adesign document.

Further, when a re-used part is edited, its edited result can bereflected throughout the entire document having the shared part. As aresult, consistency management can be facilitated.

JP-A-8-44718 (Fuji Xerox Ltd.) discloses a method that, when a figure ortable is shared among a plurality of documents, its shared relationshipsare managed so that, when the shared constituent element is edited inthe sharing original document, its edited result can be correctlyreflected even on the other shared documents (figure or table), thusmaintaining consistency of the shared information.

In addition, even in a document system for performing versionmanagement, the above method can keep the shared informationconsistency. Thus, when it is desired to reduce the number of versions,it becomes possible to judge whether a constituent element or elementsare shared among a plurality of versions, thus realizing such amanagement as to prevent an inconsistency in the shared relationships.

Constituent elements of documents which are effective when the elementsare shared include, in addition to such a figure or table as mentionedin connection with JP-A-8-44718, a character string which is used inmany documents.

For example, at the time of preparing a document, it is very common fora document writer to consistently use the same character string in aplurality of documents or within one document. More specifically, whenit is desired to prepare specifications in a product developmentproject, it is required to use common module names, unique abbreviationsand coinages which constitute the project.

In reality, however, it is often required to modify such words to moreappropriate ones as the project goes on. In such a case, it has beenconventionally inevitably required to manually modify all the documentsat the modified time point.

When such documents are written as shared by a plurality of writers, itbecomes further difficult to obtain a word consistency throughout thedocuments, and thus inevitably an enormous amount of labor of finalproof-reading of the documents is required.

Further, persons' names or departments frequently appear in a pluralityof documents regardless of the document types. For this reason, when adepartment is modified, it is also required to modify many associateddocuments.

Furthermore, when a document is prepared, it is often not prepared newlybut as a copy of a template, which is edited as to the contents thereof.Thus, even when it is required to change an old department to a new one,some of the old departments are often erroneously left as they arewithout being modified.

When such modification information is treated as a document part to beshared among a plurality of documents, the information consistency canbe automatically realized. And even when the information is corrected,its corrected contents can be reflected on all the documents. As aresult, highly efficient document preparation and editing can be carriedout.

However, when such shared information is edited in the conventionalsystem for its sharing, this involves problems which follow.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a plurality of documents which contain adocument part or parts as a part or parts of the other documents withuse of a known document editor.

For example, when a figure 504 (which is called sharing originatorinformation), which forms one of the constituent elements of a documentA 501, is designated to describe its link to a document B 502, thiscauses appearance of contents of the document part (figure 504) of alink destination in the document B 502 (as a figure 505)

Next, when it is desired to share the same figure 504 even in a documentD 506, a document containing the sharing originator information, thatis, the document A 501, is searched to perform similar share designationto the above.

When information is shared in such a large unit as the figure and thenumber of sharing units as document parts is not so large as in theexample of FIG. 5, the conventional system may be applicable. However,when such document parts such as terms, names and belonging departmentsappear frequently, this share designating operation becomes highlytroublesome.

That is, when many pieces of information are to be shared in such asmall unit, it becomes difficult in the sharing designation to searchthe other documents containing the sharing originator information.Meanwhile, an identical type of shared information is oftensimultaneously modified, as when many terms are modified or a pluralityof persons change their belonging departments at a time in a project. Inthis case, the prior art system is required to search and modify theother documents containing the sharing originator information, whichmakes the modifying operation complex.

Meanwhile, information on a person's name or belonging department isassociated with each other, and thus when a person is determined, hisname, belonging department, and telephone number extension ought to beautomatically determined. However, when the prior art system is employedto edit the document to share information associated with the person,his name, belonging department and telephone number extension are sharedrespectively independently. For this reason, modification of, e.g., namecannot follow automatic modification of the belonging department andtelephone number extension associated with the name, but requireindividual editing of the shared information. As a result, its editingoperation becomes highly complicated.

For the purpose of controlling such related information, a databasemanagement system is employed. This system however has a problem that,since schema design for determining a data structure is difficult in adatabase, the system cannot be easily applied to document preparation.Another problem is that, once the data structure is determined, itbecomes hard to modify the structure.

Further, when the shared information a modified, there are consideredtwo cases: one of which it is desired to reflect the modification on alldocuments having the shared part, and where it is desired not to reflectthe modification on past documents already edited.

For example, in the case of a term used in a project, it is necessary toreflect the term modification even on the documents already edited, butwith respect to a reporter's name and belonging department described ina report submitted in the past, the information at the time of thesubmission must remain.

The prior art system has a problem that the management of consistencybetween the above two cases cannot be realized since the partmodification is inevitably reflected on all the documents having theshared part.

The prior art system also has another problem that, when it is desiredto modify shared information and to reflect the information modificationon documents having the shared information, the correlation between thedocument and shared information link varies depending on themodification contents of the shared information, resulting in a wrongreflection thereof.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of such problems in the prior art, it is therefore an object ofthe present invention to facilitate unification of notation orrepresentation of information such as term, name and belongingdepartment, and also to facilitate automatic reflection of modificationon all documents. A specific object of the present invention is toprovide a document processing method and system, and a recording mediumhaving a document processing program, which enables easy description ofa link of shared information in a document.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a documentprocessing technique which, unlike such a complex method as in adatabase management system, can facilitate data structure modificationin a simple manner, and thus which can manage related information andefficiently edit documents with use of the related information.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a documentprocessing technique, for shared information having been modified, whichcan manage the consistency between two cases where it is desired toreflect a modification result on all documents having its sharedinformation part and where it is desired not to reflect the modificationon past documents already edited.

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a documentprocessing technique which can avoid variations in correlations betweendocuments and a shared information link, even when the sharedinformation is modified and it is desired to reflect its modificationresult on documents having the shared information.

To achieve the above objects, in accordance with an aspect of thepresent invention, there is provided a computer-implemented method forprocessing a document in a document processing system having aprocessor, a memory and a terminal device, comprising the steps of:generating as a set of shared information a shared information blockfrequently appearing in a plurality of documents; storing the generatedshared information in a memory; listing up the stored shared informationfor each of plurality of information types; editing the document todescribe a link to the shared information selected from the displayedlist of the edited shared information in the documents; storing thelink-described documents in the memory; and selecting and reading outfrom the memory the generated shared information and described document,embedding the shared information in the link-described documentaccording to the links described therein and the generated sharedinformation, and outputting information indicative of a document havingthe shared information embedded therein. The output step may include astep of displaying or printing the output information.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, theinformation block generating step generates as the shared information aterm such as abbreviation or coinage and a term combination of a termsuch as a person's name or belonging department and edits the sharedinformation into structured documents depending on the types of theinformation.

In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, thedocument processing method further comprises a version management stepof managing a change history of the shared information and documents,and the version management step stores in the memories the generatedshared information and the generated document attached by informationindicative of a new version, generates version information with timebase information for each of the shared information and document andstores the version information in the memory, and the output stepincludes a step of displaying or printing the document having the sharedinformation embedded therein on the basis of the output information. Thedisplay or print step, when it is desired to display or print thedocument in the display or print step, selects the shared information ofthe latest version created prior to a date and hour of creation of thedocument on the basis of the version information and embeds the selectedshared information in the document.

In accordance with yet another object of the present invention, thedocument processing method further comprises a step of managing a changehistory of the shared information and document, the version managementstep stores in the memory the generated shared information and generateddocument attached by information as a new version, creates versioninformation for each of the shared information and document and storesthe version information in the memory. The document processing methodfurther comprises a step of generating consistency-processed sharedinformation already subjected to a consistency processing operation. Theconsistency processing step, when the shared information is generatedand a character string or structure has been already changed afterediting of the document, maintains contents of the character string inits state before the change and returns the structure change to itsstate at the time of creating the document, generates shared informationsatisfying its consistency, and, when it is desired to display and/orprint the document in the output step, embeds the consistency-satisfiedshared information in the document.

In accordance with a still further aspect of the present invention, thedocument processing method further comprises a step of managing a changehistory of the shared information and document, the version managementstep stores in the memory the generated shared information and generateddocument attached by information indicative of a new version, createsversion information for each of the shared information and document andstores the version information in the memory. The document processingmethod further comprises a step of generating consistency-processedshared information already subjected to a consistency processingoperation. The consistency processing step, when the shared informationhas been already edited after editing of the document, acquires thelatest shared information and the shared information at the time ofcreating the document to be displayed or printed, compares both of theacquired shared information to extract a construction changed location,and, when the structure change is extracted, returns the changedstructure to its state at the time of creating the document in thelatest shared information to generate consistency-satisfied sharedinformation, and, when it is desired to display or print the document inthe output step, embeds the consistency-satisfied shared information inthe document.

In accordance with an additional aspect of the present invention, in thedocument processing method, when the structure is changed in theconsistency processing step, the structure is deleted from the latestshared information when contents of the change correspond to insertionof the structure in the shared information at the document creationtime, or, when the contents of the change correspond to deletion of thestructure from the shared information at the document creation time, thestructure is inserted in the latest shared information, or, when thecontents of the change correspond to exchange of the structure of theshared information at the document creation time, the structure afterthe exchange is deleted from the latest shared information and thestructure before the exchange is inserted to thereby generate theconsistency-satisfied shared information.

Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention willbecome apparent when reading the following detailed description of theembodiments of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows an arrangement of a first embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 is a processing flowchart for editing shared information in thefirst embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a processing flowchart for editing a structured document inthe first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a processing flowchart for displaying or printing thestructured document in the first embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 shows an example for explaining a prior art sharing method ofdocument parts in documents;

FIG. 6 shows a first example of shared information when represented by agraphical user interface (GUI) function of a shared information editingprogram;

FIG. 7 shows an example when a first example of the shared informationis output as a structured document;

FIG. 8 shows diagrams for explaining how the first example of thestructured document is edited and how the shared information is insertedto explain the first embodiment;

FIG. 9 is an example when a first example of the structured document isoutput as a structured document;

FIG. 10 is an example when the first example of the structured documenthaving the shared information embedded therein is displayed in the formof a layout;

FIG. 11 is a second example of the shared information when displayed bythe GUI function of the shared information editing program;

FIG. 12 is an example when a second example of the shared information isoutput as a structured document;

FIG. 13 is an example when a second example of the structured documentis output as a structured document;

FIG. 14 is an example when the second example of the structured documenthaving the shared information embedded therein is displayed in the formof a layout;

FIG. 15 shows an arrangement of a second embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 16 is a processing flowchart for editing shared information in thesecond embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 17 is a processing flowchart for editing a structured document inthe second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 18 is a processing flowchart for displaying or printing thestructured document in the second embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 19 shows examples of V1.0 and V2.0 after and before a secondexample of the shared information is edited;

FIG. 20 shows examples of version information about an edited structureddocument;

FIG. 21 shows an example of V2.0 after a second example of thestructured document was edited;

FIG. 22 shows examples of version information about the editedstructured document;

FIG. 23 shows an arrangement of a third embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 24 is a processing flowchart for displaying or printing astructured document in the third embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 25 is a processing flowchart for performing consistency processingoperations over shared information in the third embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 26 shows examples of V1.0 and V2.0 after and before a third exampleof the shared information is edited;

FIG. 27 is an example when a third example of the structured document isoutput as a structured document;

FIG. 28 is an example when the third example of the structured documenthaving the shared information embedded therein is displayed in the formof a layout;

FIG. 29 is an example when the third example of the structured documenthaving the shared information embedded therein is displayed in the formof a layout in the second embodiment;

FIG. 30 is an example when a third example of the shared information isdifferentially extracted;

FIG. 31 shows an example of the shared information already subjected tothe consistency processing operation; and

FIG. 32 is an example when the third example of the structured documenthaving the shared information already subjected to the consistencyprocessing operation is displayed in the form of a layout.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The present invention will be explained in connection with embodimentsof the present invention. Although explanation will be made in thepresent embodiments in connection with a structured document having adocument structure prepared using SGML by way of example, it should benoted that the present invention may be applied to general documents aswell.

Embodiment 1

FIG. 1 shows an arrangement of a first embodiment of the invention. Asillustrated, the present embodiment includes a CPU 101, a terminal unit102 including input/output devices, a secondary memory 103 for storingdocuments therein, a memory medium 104 for storing programs therein, anda primary memory 1 for storing a procedure program for processingvarious structured documents.

The structured document processing program further includes a sharedinformation editing program 105 for editing shared information 103 afrequently described in a plurality of structured documents, a sharedinformation storage program 106 for storing the shared information 103 ain the secondary memory 103, a shared information list-up program 107for listing up the stored shared information 103 a for each of the typesof the information, a structured document editing program 108 forediting a structured document 103 b to describe a link of the sharedinformation 103 a in the edited structured document, a structureddocument storage program 109 for storing the structured document 103 bin the secondary memory 103, and a structured document output program110 for embedding the contents of the shared information 103 a in thestructured document 103 b according to link information described in thedocument structured document 103 b to generate information indicative ofa structured document as an editing objective and to output theinformation in the form of a display or printout. An output of thestructured document output program 110, that is, the shared-informationembedded document information can be provided to various types of userapplication devices. For example, the information can be provided notonly to the aforementioned display or printout device but also to a filemeans, network terminal or server. As an alternative to the hardwareconfiguration in the above arrangement, a plurality of terminal units102 may be connected to the CPU 101, primary memories 1, 103 a and 103b, secondary memory 103, shared information 103 a and structureddocument 103 b through a bus or a communication network communicationnetwork 120.

In the present embodiment, an SGML document is used as the structureddocument as an example. SGML is a document description language which isprescribed as a marked-up structured document based on 8879 of theInternational Organization for Unification (ISO). However, the presentembodiment is not limited to SGML. For example, the present inventioncan be applied to a structured document language such as XML andnon-structured document languages with modifications. The sharedinformation 103 a and structured document 103 b are stored in a memorysuch as a hard disk drive.

Explanation will next be made as to specific processing procedures ofthe present embodiment by referring to flowcharts such as shown in FIGS.2, 3 and 4, followed by description of processing examples according tothe processing procedures.

As shown in FIG. 2, editing operation of shared information is carriedout according to a procedure which follows.

Step 201:

The shared information editing program 105 receives many pieces ofshared information alone frequently appearing in a plurality ofstructured documents, edits the received shared information, and storesit in the secondary memory 103 as the shared information 103 a.

At this time, information such as assumed to be later shared among aplurality of documents are selected as the shared information, describedand modified according to the type of the information.

Step 202:

The edited shared information 103 a is stored in the secondary memory103 by execution of the shared information storage program 106.

Shown in the present embodiment is an example such that sharedinformation are stored as structured documents depending on the types ofterm information such as abbreviation or coinage and of personinformation such as person's name or belonging department. However, whenit is unnecessary to store the shared information as the structureddocument, the shared information may be stored by using a databasemanagement system or may be stored in an ordinary file system as datafiles.

As shown in FIG. 3, next, a structured document is edited independentlyof the steps 201 and 202 in accordance with a procedure which follows.

Step 301:

The structured document editing program 108 performs structured documentediting operation.

Step 302:

When it is desired to insert shared information in a structured documentbeing edited, the shared information list-up program 107 lists up theshared information stored in the secondary memory 103.

At this time, an operator or user specifies the type such as term orperson of the shared information to be inserted, which causes theprogram 107 to produce a list of the information for each of the types.

Step 303:

A link of the shared information to be inserted is described to a targetstructured document by execution of the structured document editingprogram 108.

The link description may be performed by means of the user who directlywrites a link representation from an input device using the structureddocument program 108, or also may be realized by means of the user whogives the link representation through such user's operation as a dragand drop of a selected term in an insertion location of the objectivestructured document using the shared information list-up program 107.

Step 304:

Completion of the editing operation of the structured document causesthe structured document storage program 109 to store the documentalready edited in the secondary memory 103.

The structured document stored in the step 304 is displayed or printedin accordance with a procedure which follows, as shown in FIG. 4.

Step 401:

When it is desired to display or print the structured document, thestructured document to be displayed or printed as well as the sharedinformation about a link destination described in the structureddocument are read into the structured document output program 110 fromthe secondary memory 103.

Step 402:

The contents of the shared information is embedded in the structureddocument, displayed or printed by execution of the structured documentoutput program 110.

PROCESSING EXAMPLE 1

The embodiment will be detailed in connection with specific processingexamples of FIGS. 6 to 10 by referring to flowcharts of FIGS. 2, 3 and4.

Step 201:

The shared information editing program 105 receives many pieces ofshared information alone frequently appearing in a plurality ofstructured documents and edits the received shared information.

In the processing example, the shared information is assumed to be termsof character strings of such company name or product name as to becommonly used throughout all the documents, or of such as module namewhich may be modified on the way in a project.

In the example, terms which are estimated to be later shared in aplurality of documents as shared information, are selected and theshared information is described and modified depending on the types ofsets of the terms.

For example, the shared information editing program 105 has a graphicaluser interface (GUI) as shown in FIG. 6. In the present example, itemsof key and term are defined in term definition.

Of character strings to be described in documents, the user defines assets of keys and terms such character strings or terms that are desiredto keep their expression consistencies or such terms that are desired tobe used commonly throughout all the documents even when the terms aremodified on the way. The key item is used when a link to the associatedterm is described in a structured document, and is defined uniquely inall the terms.

Prepared in the GUI of FIG. 6 is a term definition which includes itemsof key and term and in which the user can define such a term such as acompany name or product name to be unified in all the documents or amodule name of a project which may be modified on the way.

The GUI defines shared information of the input terms. The sharedinformation editing program 105 edits the shared information accordingto the definition to create a structured document as shown in FIG. 7.

The term shared information is described as followed by a structure of<term definition> and as structured so as to have structures of <term>corresponding in number to the defined terms. Item key for each termdescribes the attribute of identification (ID) with respect to theconstruction <term>, and the actual character string is expressed so asto indicate the contents of the structure.

Step 202:

The edited shared information is stored in the secondary memory 103 byexecution of the shared information storage program 106.

Upon storing the shared information, the term shared information isstored, for example, as such a structured document 701 as shown in FIG.7.

A processing example of editing a structured document is shown in thefollowing.

Step 301:

The structured document editing program 108 edits a structured document.

For example, the structured document editing program 108 has a GUI asshown in FIG. 8. In the drawing, a reference numeral 801 denotes awindow for displaying therein a logical structure of a document, and anumeral 802 denotes a window for displaying therein character strings inthe logical structure.

Step 302:

When the shared information be inserted in the structured document nowbeing edited, the shared information list-up program 107 functions tolist up the shared information of the terms stored in the secondarymemory 103.

For example, the shared information list-up program 107 has a GUIsimilar to that of the shared information editing program 105 shown inFIG. 6, and lists up terms defined as term shared information.

Step 303:

The structured document editing program 108 describes a link of a termto be inserted to the shared information.

In the example of FIG. 8, the user selects one of terms displayed by theshared information list-up program 107, drags and drops the selectedterm into an insertion location to insert the term shared information inthe structured document. This causes the structured document editingprogram 108 to describe its link. In this connection, a referencenumeral 803 denotes a representation to be linked.

Further, the user can directly describe the link to the sharedinformation from an input device by execution of the structured documentediting program 108.

FIG. 9 shows an example of a structured document having links describedtherein. Such user's operation as shown in FIG. 8 causes generation of astructured document as shown in FIG. 9.

In the structured document of FIG. 9, the links are described inhypermedia/time-based structuring language (HyTime) (ISO/IEC 10744).

In the SGML, for the purpose of expressing mutual reference betweenstructures, an ID attribute is given to one of the structures to bereferenced while an identification (ID) of the referencing structure isgiven to the value of the IDREF attribute.

In FIG. 9, a structure 902 of <TERM> is inserted as a link to a term andthe term as a link destination is specified in the IDREF attribute ofthe TERM. However, since direct IDREF reference to the ID described inanother document cannot be made in the SGML, the HyTime language is usedto reference the ID of the shared information in another document inthis example.

As shown in FIG. 9, first, in an item 901, ENTITY reference to thestructured document 701 of FIG. 7 having the shared informationdescribed therein is described in HyTime notation. The ENTITY referenceis a notation for referencing another document, following which, anotherstructured document 701 of “term_dic.sgm” can be referenced under theENTITY name of “term_dic”.

Descriptions by reference numerals 903 and 904 are such that a structurehaving the ID attribute can be referenced from inside of the document in“term_dic.sgm”. More specifically, the description 903 enables a“product_name” 905 as an ID in the “term_dic.sgm” to be referenced withan ID of “product_name_ref” 906, while the description 904 enables a“SGML_parser” 907 to be referenced with an ID of “SGML_parser_ref” 908.

Since the “product_name_ref” 906 and “SGML_parser_ref” 908 can makeIDREF reference, these are defined as attribute values of <TERM>,respectively.

Step 304:

Completion of editing operation of the structured document causes thestructured document storage program 109 to store the edited document inthe secondary memory 103.

This means that such a structured document shown in FIG. 9 is stored.

Explanation will next be made as to a processing example of displayingor printing the structured document of FIG. 9 stored in the step 304.

Step 401:

The structured document to be printed as well as the shared information701 of the link destination term described in the structured documentare read out from the secondary memory 103.

Step 402:

The contents of the shared term information structured document 701 isembedded in the structured document, and then displayed or printed byexecution of the structured document output program 110.

FIG. 10 shows an example of displaying the structured document of FIG.9. In the Figure, the contents of the shared term information describedas links are embedded in the structured document and displayed in theform of a layout.

Through the above steps, links of terms frequently appearing in thestructured documents to the shared information can be easily describedin the structured documents.

As a result, the consistency of a term to be desirably used as the sameterm in different documents can be easily kept and thus efficientdocument editing can be realized. This is valid, in particular, when itis desired for a plurality of persons to edit term-consistent documents.

Further, even when a term is modified, only modification of its sharedinformation causes automatic reflection of the modification on all thedocuments, thus realizing efficient document modification.

PROCESSING EXAMPLE 2

Explanation will then be made of the second processing example of thefirst embodiment in accordance with flowcharts of FIGS. 2, 3 and 4 withuse of examples of FIGS. 11 to 14.

Step 201:

The shared information editing program 105 edits shared informationfrequently appearing in a plurality of structured documents.

In this processing example 2, it is assumed that the shared informationis person information which includes person's name, belonging departmentand extension telephone number as a combination of terms of suchcharacter strings. It goes without saying that information other thanthe person information may be employed as the combination terms.

In this example, information which is estimated as will be later sharedin the plurality of documents is selected as the shared information, anddescribed and modified for each of the types of sets of the terms.

For example, the shared information editing program shared informationediting program 105 has a GUI as shown in FIG. 11. In this Figure,person information include items of key, name, belonging department andextension telephone number.

The user defines person information to be described in the documents asa set of person's key, name, belonging department and extensiontelephone number. Item key is to be used when a link to the personinformation is described in the structured document, and is defineduniquely throughout all person information.

Prepared in the GUI of FIG. 11 is a term definition which includes ofname, belonging department and extension telephone number of personinformation. Using the term definition, the user can define the personinformation to be unified throughout all the documents.

The GUI defines shared information of input person information. Thiscauses the shared information editing program 105 to edit the sharedinformation according to the definition to thereby create a structureddocument shown in FIG. 12 as an example of person dictionary file.

The shared information of the present example is described as structuredin such a manner that a structure of <person information> is followed bystructures of <person> corresponding in number to defined persons.Further, a key for each person is described as an ID attribute of astructure <person>. Each person information has such a structure as tohave a structure of <person> followed by structures of the person's<name>, <belonging department> and <extension telephone number>, whichare described as the contents of their structures.

Step 202:

Shared information 1101 of the edited person information is stored inthe secondary memory 103 by execution of the shared information storageprogram 106.

Upon storing the shared information, the shared information is stored inthe memory 103 b, for example, as a structured document 1201 as shown inFIG. 12.

The following is an processing example of editing a structured document.

Step 301:

The structured document editing program 108 edits a structured document.The structured document editing program 108 has a GUI similar to that ofFIG. 8.

Step 302:

When the shared information of the person information is inserted in thestructured document being edited, the shared person information storedin the secondary memory 103 is listed up by execution of the sharedinformation list-up program 107.

For example, the shared information list-up program 107 has a GUIsimilar to that of the shared information editing program 105 shown inFIG. 11, and lists up the defined person information.

Step 303:

A link to the shared information to be inserted is described byexecution of the structured document editing program 108. The linkdescription is carried out in the same manner as in the processingexample 1.

Shown in FIG. 13 is an example of a structured document having linksalready described therein. In the Figure, similarly to FIG. 9, theHyTime language is used to describe the links to the shared information.

As shown in FIG. 13, first of all, ENTITY reference to the structureddocument 1201 of FIG. 12 having the shared information described thereinis described in a representation 1301 in the HyTime notation. Due tosuch description, another structured document 1201 referred to herein as“person_dic.sgm” can be referenced by the ENTITY name of “person_dic”.

In a description 1304, a structure of “taro” 1202 as an ID in the“person_dic.sgm” can be referenced with use of an ID of “person_ref”1309.

In a description 1305, an ID of “person_name_ref” 1310 is described inthe ‘treeloc’ notation of the HyTime language to indicate the firstchild structure of its own as viewed from the structure of “person ref”.

More in detail, the description 1305 has a construction <name> havingcontents of “Heisei Taro”. The first “1” as the contents of <marklist>given below <treeloc> means its own and the next “1” means the firstchild.

In a description 1306, an ID of “person_belong_ref” 1311 indicates astructure of the second child as viewed from a structure of“person_ref”. In a description 1307, an ID of “person_tel_ref” 1312indicates a construction of the third child as viewed from theconstruction of “person_ref”.

The respective ID's, since the ID's can receive the IDREF reference frominside of the document, are defined as attribute values of <TERM>,respectively.

Further, when the “taro” 1308 is changed to “jiro”, its name, belongingdepartment and extension telephone number indicate a child of aconstruction having an ID “jiro”. Thus, a “jiro” report can be createdwithout any need for modifying the <TERM> description 1302 in FIG. 13and “treeloc” descriptions 1305, 1306 and 1307.

Step 304:

Completion of the editing of the structured document causes thestructured document storage program 109 to store the edited document inthe secondary memory 103.

That is, such a structured document as shown in FIG. 13 is stored in thememory 103.

Next shown is a processing example of displaying or printing thestructured document of FIG. 13 stored in the step 304.

Step 401:

A structured document to be displayed or printed as well as shareddocument 1201 of the link destination described in the structureddocument are read out from the secondary memory 103 into the memory 110.

Step 402:

By execution of the structured document output program 110, the contentsof the shared person information 1201 is embedded in the structureddocument, and then output in the form of a display or printout.

FIG. 14 shows an example of displaying the structured document of FIG.13. In the Figure, the contents of the shared person informationdescribed as links, that is, having its name “Heisei Taro”, belongingdepartment “development depart. 12 group” and extension telephone number“1111” are embedded in the structured document and displayed in the formof a layout.

Through the above steps, similarly to the processing example 1, links tothe shared information of a combination of terms frequently used in thedocuments can be easily described in the structured documents. Thus,even when person's belonging department or extension telephone number ismodified, only modification of the shared information of the combinationterms causes automatic reflection of the modification contents on allthe documents, thereby enabling automatic and efficient modification ofthe documents.

Further, when the HyTime notation is used, a link can be described as arelative position from its KEY. Hence, once one document is previouslyprepared as a template, only modification of KEY ID enables automaticmodification of all the associated information, thus increasing thedocument preparation efficiency.

Furthermore, when the shared information of combination terms arepreviously saved as a structured document, modification of a structureof the shared combination term information can be facilitated. Forexample, upon adding persons's addresses to the person information, thestructure of the structured document of this Figure is converted by anSGML converting tool so that it is only required to insert a structure<address> below the structure <person>. Therefore, this management ofthe structure modification of the shared combination term informationcan be made easier than the schema modification when a database is used.

Embodiment 2

An arrangement of a second embodiment is shown in FIG. 15.

As illustrated, the present embodiment includes, in addition of thearrangement (see FIG. 1) of the first embodiment, a version managementprogram 1501 which when, the shared information 103 a and structureddocument 103 b are to be stored, stores them as a new version withoutoverwriting them to manage a modification history of document creationdate, time, etc. When a structured document is to be displayed orprinted by execution of the structured document output program 110, theversion management program 1501 extracts the shared information oflatest one of versions of documents prepared prior to the creation dateand time by the program structured document output 110, embeds theshared information in the structured document, and then displays orprints the information-embedded document.

In other words, in accordance with the present embodiment, even when theshared information is modified, the modification is not reflected onpast documents already edited, and the past shared information at theediting time is embedded for display or printout.

For example, when a report already submitted in the past is laterdisplayed or printed, it becomes necessary to output the report withoutchanging the reporter's name and belonging department described at thetime of the report submission.

In the case of such a term used in a project, on the contrary, itbecomes necessary to reflect the latest revision information even on thedocuments already edited.

In order to manage the consistency between the above two cases, whetherto employ either one of the two cases is previously determined for eachof the types of the document and shared information, and is previouslystored as document attribute information.

The processing operation at the time of displaying or printing adocument is changed by referring to the attribute information, so thatthe above two-way consistency management can be realized.

When the shared information modification is to be reflected on theshared documents to display or print the structured documents having theshared information embedded therein, this can be realized by embeddingthe latest version of shared information in the documents.

The operation of the present embodiment will be explained in connectionwith the case where the shared information modification is not to bereflected on the shared documents.

A specific processing procedure of the present embodiment will beexplained with reference to flowcharts of FIGS. 16 to 18, and thenprocessing examples will be explained according to the processingprocedure.

In FIG. 16 showing a procedure of editing shared information, a step 201is the same as that in the processing procedure of the first embodiment.

Step 1601:

When the shared information storage program 106 is executed to store theshared information 103 a edited in the step 201 in the secondary memory103, control is passed to the version management program 1501, and theshared information is stored as a new version one without overwriting byexecution of the version management program 1501.

The version management program 1501 is executed to store in thesecondary memory 103 version information 103 c including version numbersand creation date and time of all version shared information alreadyedited, associate the version information 103 c with all thealready-edited version shared information, and then store the editedversion shared information in the secondary memory 103.

As a result, by specifying any version number, shared information on thespecified version number can be later extracted.

Next, editing operation of a structured document is carried outaccording to the following procedure independently of the steps 201 and1601.

In FIG. 17 showing a processing procedure, steps 301 to 303 are the sameas those in the processing procedure of the first embodiment. Step 1701:

When the structured document 103 b edited in the step 303 is stored inthe secondary memory 103 by execution of the structured document storageprogram 109, the document 103 is stored without overwriting it as a newversion document by execution of the version management program 1501.

The version management program 1501 stores in the secondary memory 103the version information 103 c including version numbers and creationdate and time of all versions of edited documents, associates theversion information 103 c with all the versions of edited documents, andthen stores the edited version document in the secondary memory 103.

As a result, by specifying a desired version number, a structureddocument of the desired version can, be later extracted.

Further, when it is desired to display or print the structured document103 b, a procedure is carried out according to the flowchart of FIG. 18.

In the operations of this Figure, the contents of latest one of versionsof the shared information prepared prior to the creation date and timeof the structured document to be displayed or printed is embedded in thestructured document, and then the embedded document is displayed orprinted.

Step 1801:

The creation date and time of the structured document to be displayed orprinted is acquired by execution of the version management program 1501,and is set as TIME 1.

Step 1802:

The version information 103 c of the shared information to be embeddedin the structured document is acquired by execution of the versionmanagement program 1501.

Step 1803:

The creation date and time of the latest version of the sharedinformation is acquired by execution of the version management program1501. This creation date and time is set as TIME 2.

Step 1804:

When TIME 2 is earlier than TIME 1, the processing proceeds to a step1805. When TIME 2 is not earlier than TIME 1, the shared information isof the version created after the time point of having described thelinks in the structured document, the creation date and time of aone-previous version is acquired. This creation date and time isreplaced by TIME 2 and the processing returns to the step 1804.

Step 1805:

When TIME 2 is earlier than TIME 1, the shared information isinformation at the time at which the links have been described in thestructured document, and thus the version of shared information isacquired.

Step 1806:

By execution of the structured document output program 110, the contentof the shared information of the version acquired in the step 1805 isembedded in the structured document, and the embedded document isdisplayed or printed.

PROCESSING EXAMPLE 3

A specific processing example of the present embodiment will beexplained with use of the document of FIGS. 19 to 22 with reference tothe flowcharts of FIGS. 17 and 18.

Step 1601:

When the shared information edited in the step 201 is stored in thesecondary memory 103 by execution of the shared information storageprogram 106, the edited shared information is stored as a new version byexecution of the version management program 1501.

It is assumed that, for example, since the belonging department of aperson “Heisei Taro” has been changed, the shared information 1101 asthe person information of FIG. 11 has been edited as shown in FIG. 19.In this case, the shared information 1101 of the person informationshown in FIG. 11 is set as version V1.0, while shared information sharedinformation 1901 of the person information after edited is set asversion V2.0. By execution of the version management program 1501,version information 2001 of creation date and time as shown in FIG. 20is stored.

The following is a processing example of editing a structured document.

Step 1701:

When the structured document edited in the step 303 is stored in thesecondary memory 103 by execution of the structured document storageprogram 109, the edited structured document is stored as a new versionby execution of the version management program 1501.

For example, it is assumed that the structured document 1401 of FIG. 14has been edited as another report as shown in FIG. 21 and that thestructured documents of the old and new versions as well as versioninformation 2201 of creation date and time, etc. as shown in FIG. 22have been stored.

As shown in FIG. 22, the structured document 1401 of V1.0 is created on“1996.5.15,9:00”, and the shared information inserted at that time is ofV1.0. The shared information is edited on “1996.8.21,15:30” as shown inFIG. 20 and stored as a new version V2.0. Accordingly, since thestructured document 2101 of V2.0 is created on “1996.11.20,16:30”, theshared information inserted at that time is of V2.0.

Further, explanation will be then made of an example of displaying orprinting the structured documents of FIGS. 14 and 21, by referring tothe flowchart of FIG. 18.

Step 1801:

The creation date and time of the structured document to be displayed orprinted is acquired by execution of the version management program 1501.The creation date/time is set as TIME 1.

In the case of the structured document 1401 of FIG. 14, “1996.5.15,9:00”is substituted for TIME 1.

In the case of the structured document 2101 of FIG. 21,“1996.5.11,16:30” is substituted for TIME 1.

Step 1802:

The version information of the shared information to be embedded in thestructured document is acquired by execution of the version managementprogram 1501.

The version information 2001 of the shared information of FIG. 20 isacquired.

Step 1803:

The creation date and time of the latest version of the sharedinformation is acquired by execution of the version management program1501. The creation date and time is set as TIME 2. Here, “1996.8.21,15:30” is substituted for TIME 2.

Step 1804:

When TIME 2 is not earlier than TIME 1, this means that the sharedinformation is edited after the time point at which the link has beendescribed in the structured document. Thus, the creation date and timeof the one-previous version is acquired. The acquired creation date andtime is substituted for TIME 2, and then, the processing returns to thestep 1804.

In the case of the structured document 1401 of FIG. 14, since TIME 2 islater than TIME 1, the creation date and time “1996.4.1,10:00” of theone-previous version V1.0 is substituted for TIME 2. At this time point,TIME 2 is earlier than TIME 1.

In the case of the structured document 2101 of FIG. 21, TIME 2 isearlier than TIME 1.

Step 1805:

When TIME 2 is earlier than TIME 1, the shared information is theinformation at the time point at which the link has been described inthe structured document, so that the shared information of that versionis acquired.

In the case of the structured document 1401 of FIG. 14, the version V1.0is acquired.

In the case of the structured document 2101 of FIG. 21, the version V2.0is acquired.

Step 1806:

The content of the shared information acquired in the step 1805 isembedded in the structured document and displayed or printed byexecution of the structured document output program 110.

In the case of the structured document 1401 of FIG. 14, the content ofthe shared information of V1.0 is embedded therein, so that itsbelonging department column has “development department 12 group”corresponding to the content at the time of creating the structureddocument.

In the case of the structured document 2101 of FIG. 21, the content ofthe shared information of V2.0 is embedded therein, so that itsbelonging department column has “development department 16 group”corresponding to the content at the time of creating the structureddocument.

Through the above steps, when a structured document created in the pastis displayed or printed, the shared information at the time point ofhaving created the structured document can be embedded therein.

It will be easily appreciated that, when a structured document is copiedand edited to create another document, it is unnecessary to change thedescription of the link to the shared information and the sharedinformation at that time point is automatically embedded, thusfacilitating document re-use.

When shared information to be embedded in a structured document mixedlycontains such shared information as person information requiring theaforementioned version selection and shared information such as terminformation for which the latest version is always selected; a flag isprovided at each link location in the structured document. In the caseof the person information, the flag is set; while, in the case of theterm information, the flag is not set. When the flag is set in thedisplay or print mode, operations as shown by the flowchart in FIG. 18are carried out to select a version and to embed the shared information.When the flag is not set, the latest version is selected to embed theshared information.

In addition to combination terms such as person information indicativeof a combination of term, person's name and belonging department asshown in Embodiments 1 and 2, there are various types of sharedinformation which are valid when the shared information are storedaccording to their types, listed up and shared between structureddocuments.

When HyTime is used, a link to image or audio data can also bedescribed. Thus, when personal photographic information (image data) orbrief self introduction by her or his speech (audio data) as an exampleis previously stored in association with a person, the present inventioncan be applied to various types of documents including writerintroduction of papers or web pages in world wide web (WWW).

In accordance with the present invention, such photographic informationis previously stored as upgraded at suitable intervals, so that, when apast document such as a paper is displayed or printed, the informationat the time point of having created the document can be used, and whenan active document such as web pages is displayed or printed, the latestinformation can be used, thus realizing more flexible informationre-use.

Embodiment 3

In Embodiment 2, the structured document has been correctly displayed orprinted, when the shared information is edited but it is desired not toreflect the modification on past documents already edited and havinglinks to the shared information, by embedding the shared information atthe time of having created the structured document.

Embodiment 3 is intended, when shared information is edited but it isdesired to reflect the modification on past documents already edited andhaving links to the shared information, to correctly display or print astructured document even when the link correlation varies due to theinfluence of the modification of the shared information.

Explanation will first be made of a problem that the link correlationvaries.

It is now assumed that shared information 2601 of V1.0 has been editedto create a shared information 2602 of V2.0 as shown in FIG. 26, forinstance.

FIG. 26 shows shared information of persons. The shared information ofV2.0 contains, in addition to the information of V1.0, structures 2603and 2604 of <name number>. In addition, the belonging department of“Heisei Taro” and extension telephone number as a character string arechanged.

Assume that, prior to the editing of the shared information of FIG. 26to V2.0, a structured document 2700 having a link to the sharedinformation 2601 described therein as shown in FIG. 27 has alreadyexisted.

In the structured document 2700, similarly to the structured document ofFIG. 13 shown by the processing example 2 of Embodiment 1, the link isdescribed based on HyTime notation as a relative position with respectto KEY.

In a description 2701, first of all, ENTITY reference to the sharedinformation 2601 of FIG. 26 stored under a file name of “person_dic.sgm”is described. Due to this description, the document shared information2601 of “person_dic.sgm” can be referenced with the ENTITY name of“person_dic”.

In a description 2704, a structure “taro” as an ID in “person_dic.sgm”can be referenced with use of an ID of “person_ref” 2709.

In a description 2705, an ID of “person_name_ref” 2710 indicates thefirst child of its own as viewed from a structure “person_ref”. That is,it indicates a structure <name> having the contents of “Heisei Taro”.The first “1” in the contents of <marklist> given below <treeloc> meansits own, and the next “1” means the first child.

In a description 2706, similarly, an ID of “person_belong ref” 2711indicates a structure of the second child as viewed from a structure“person_tel_ref” 2712 indicates a structure of the third child as viewedfrom a structure of “person_ref”.

The respective IDs, which can be subjected to the IDREF reference frominside the document, are defined as attribute values of <TERM>,respectively.

When the structured document described in such a manner as mentionedabove is displayed by execution of the structured document outputprogram 110 in accordance with the steps 401 and 402; the contents ofthe shared information described as the links, i.e., the name “HeiseiTaro”, belonging department “development department 12 group” andextension telephone number “1111” are embedded in the structureddocument, and the embedded structured document is displayed in the formof a layout as shown in FIG. 28.

When the structured document 2700 is displayed or printed after theshared information 2601 is edited into V2.0 information, the systemshown in Embodiment 1 involves a problem described below.

That is, the structured document 2700 is a document for describing selfintroduction therein, so that when it is desired to display or print thedocument, the latest information should be always displayed or printed.To this end, when the latest shared information 2602 is displayed asembedded in the structured document, it is undesirably displayed asshown in FIG. 29, because the link is described as a relative positionwith respect to KEY.

This means that, though the belonging department is defined in thestructured document 2700 as the second child from the viewpoint ofhaving an ID “taro”, insertion of a new structure in the sharedinformation of V2.0 results in the belonging department not being thesecond child, thus changing its link correlation.

In FIG. 29, the contents of <name number> as the second child of astructure having an ID “taro” is displayed as the contents of thebelonging department in the latest shared information 2602. Similarly,representation of its extension telephone number is also shifted and isnot correct.

It is desirable that a link destination originally refers to the samestructure as that at the time of creating it and contents thereof be thelatest ones.

The above problem can be avoided by describing the link in the form ofnot the relative position but an absolute position using a structure ID.However, this system also eliminates such a merit as exemplified inEmbodiments 1 and 2, that is, only KEY modification enables automaticmodification of all related information.

In order to embed the contents of the latest shared information in thestructured document having the links to the shared information describedtherein and to prevent a structure discrepancy, the present embodimentprovides such an arrangement as shown in FIG. 23.

As illustrated, the present embodiment is arranged, in addition to thearrangement (see FIG. 15) of Embodiment 2, so that, when sharedinformation is edited after creation of a structured document to therebychange a character string or structure of the shared information, aconsistency processing program 2301 performs its consistency processingoperation on the shared information to create new shared informationalready subjected to the consistency processing operation, whereby theconsistency-processed shared information can be displayed or printed asembedded in the structured document by execution of the structureddocument output program 110.

The consistency-processed shared information generated by theconsistency processing program 2301 refers to such information that,with respect to shared information after a character string or structurehas been changed, the contents of the character string are the same asthose after the change, the structure change causes the structureddocument to be returned to its creation time state, so that, byembedding it in the structured document, the change in the contents ofthe character string are reflected and the original link correlation canbe correctly maintained.

A specific processing procedure of the present embodiment will beexplained with use of the flowcharts of FIGS. 24 and 25.

After that, a processing example will be explained in accordance withthe processing procedure.

The editing procedure of shared information and the editing procedure ofa structured document are the same as the operations of the steps 201and 202 and steps 301 to 304 indicated in Embodiment 1. The structureddocument is displayed in accordance with a processing procedure, asshown in FIG. 24, described below.

Step 2401:

A structured document to be displayed or printed is acquired from thesecondary memory 103 by execution of the version management program1501.

Step 2402:

When the structured document with the latest version shared informationembedded therein is displayed or printed, consistency operation iscarried out to the latest shared information by execution of consistencyprocessing program 2301 to generate shared information subjected to theconsistency operation. The details will be later explained in steps 2501to 2504. When the latest version shared information is not embedded, astep 2404 is performed.

Step 2403:

The contents of the consistency-processed shared information generatedin the step 2402 are embedded in locations described as links in thestructured document to obtain an embedded structured document, and thenthe embedded structured document is displayed or printed

Step 2404:

When the latest version shared information is not to be embedded in thestructured document for its display or printout, the shared informationat the time of creating the structured document is acquired by executionof the version management program 1501 in accordance with a proceduresimilar to that of the steps 1801 to 1805 in Embodiment 2.

Step 2405:

The contents of the shared information acquired in the step 2404 areembedded at locations described as links in the structured document, andthen the structured document is displayed or printed by execution of thestructured document output program 110.

Detailed explanation will be made of a processing procedure ofsubjecting the latest shared information to the consistency operation togenerate consistency-processed shared information by execution of theconsistency processing program 2301, indicated in the step 2402 byreferring to the flowchart of FIG. 25.

Step 2501:

The latest shared information is acquired by execution of the versionmanagement program 1501.

Step 2502:

Shared information at the time of creating the structured document isacquired by execution of the version management program 1501 inaccordance with a procedure similar to that of the steps 1801 to 1805shown in Embodiment 2.

Step 2503:

The latest shared information acquired in the step 2501 is compared withthe shared information at the time of creating the structured documentacquired in the step 2502 to extract a structure-changed location.

Step 2504:

When the structure-changed location is extracted in the step 2503, thismeans that there may be a discrepancy in the link to the sharedinformation. In this case, the structure change is returned to its stateat the time of creating the structured document for its modification tothereby generate consistency-processed shared information.

First, in order to return the structure change to the state at thedocument creation time, if a new structure is added to the sharedinformation at the document creation time, then the new additionalstructure is deleted from the latest shared information.

On the contrary, if a structure in the shared information at thedocument creation time is deleted from the new shared information, thenthe creation-time structure is added to the latest shared information.The structure exchange is regarded as structure deletion and insertion,which is carried out in the same manner as the above.

Such modified latest shared information is called shared informationwhich has been modified so as to keep the consistency.

PROCESSING EXAMPLE 4

A specific processing example of the embodiment will be explained inconnection with, as an example, the shared information of FIG. 26 andthe structured document of FIG. 27 with reference to the flowcharts ofFIGS. 24 and 25.

Step 2401:

A structured document to be displayed or printed is acquired from thesecondary memory 103 by execution of the version management program1501. In this case, the structured document of FIG. 27 is acquired.

Step 2402:

When the structured document with the latest version shared informationembedded therein is to be displayed or printed, the latest sharedinformation is consistency-processed to generate consistency-processedshared information.

A processing example of the step 2402 will be detailed with use of theflowchart of FIG. 25.

Step 2501:

The latest shared information is acquired by execution of the versionmanagement program 1501. The shared information 2602 of the latest V2.0is acquired in FIG. 26.

Step 2502:

The shared information at the time of creating the structured documentis acquired by execution of the version management program 1501according to a procedure similar to that of the steps 1801 to 1805 shownin Embodiment 2.

Since the structured document 2700 of FIG. 27 has been already createdbefore the editing of the shared information V2.0, the sharedinformation 2601 of V1.0 is acquired.

Step 2503:

The latest shared information acquired in the step 2501 is compared withthe shared information at the document creation time acquired in thestep 2502 to extract a structure changed location.

There are considered several methods of extracting a structure changedlocation. Employed in the present processing example, however, is, as anexample, a difference extracting method by execution of a program whichcompares the old and new structured documents.

FIG. 30 shows a difference extracting result between the sharedinformation of V1.0 and V2.0 acquired in the steps 2501 and 2052.

FIG. 30 shows that extraction is made such that character string changesare made at locations 3003 and 3004 shown by underlines in FIG. 30, andstructure changes are made at locations 3005 and 3006 shown by areasshaded by slanted lines.

Step 2504:

When a structure changed location is extracted in the step 2503, theremay be a discrepancy in the link to the shared information. To avoidthis, the structure change in the latest shared information is returnedand modified to the state at the time of having created the structureddocument to thereby generate consistency-processed shared information.

It will be seen from FIG. 30 that the structures 3005 and 3006 are newlyadded in the latest shared information. In order to return the sharedinformation to the state at the document creation time, these structuresare deleted from the latest shared information. In this connection, as adifference extraction technique, there can be employed a techniquedisclosed in U.S. Ser. No. 08/657,306, by Aoyama et al., assigned to thesame assignee as the present application. The disclosure of thatapplication is incorporated herein by reference.

FIG. 30 shows the consistency-processed shared information modified inthis way. In FIG. 31, the newly-added structures <name number> aredeleted, but the character string changed locations remain as they areas the latest contents 3102.

Step 2403:

The contents of the consistency-processed shared information generatedin the step 2402, i.e., steps 2501 to 2504 are embedded at locationsdescribed as links in the structured document, and the embeddedstructured document is displayed or printed by execution of thestructured document output program 110.

FIG. 32 shows an example of the consistency-processed shared informationof FIG. 31 when the structured document of FIG. 27 is embedded anddisplayed. As shown in FIG. 32, no discrepancy takes place in thestructures described as link destinations at the document creation timewhile the contents of the shared information are displayed as the latestinformation in the form of a layout.

When the latest shared information is not to be embedded, the operationsof the steps 2404 and 2405 are carried out, which are the same as thosein Embodiment 2 and thus explanation thereof is omitted.

Through the above steps, the shared information is edited. When themodification change be reflected on structured documents commonly havingthe shared information, the latest contents can be reflected on thedocuments while preventing any shift of the link correlation between thedocuments and shared information.

The functional programs of the memories shown in Embodiments of FIGS. 1,15 and 23 can be stored in a memory medium such as CD-ROM, DVD-ROM orfloppy disk to be installed from the medium to an implementation device.Alternatively, these programs may also be installed from a server intothe primary memory 1. These programs may be installed in variousaspects, as will be appreciated easily.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method for processing adocument comprising the steps of: generating a shared information blockas a set of shared information appearing in a plurality of documents;storing the generated shared information block in a first memory;describing a link to the shared information in the documents; storingthe link-described documents in a second memory; and reading out fromsaid memories said generated shared information and described document,embedding the shared information in the link-described documentaccording to the links described therein and said generated sharedinformation, and generating and outputting information indicative of adocument having the shared information embedded therein; wherein saidshared information block generating step generates as said sharedinformation a term including an abbreviation or a coinage, or a termcombination, or both an abbreviation or a coinage and a term combinationand edits the shared information into structured documents depending onthe types of the shared information.
 2. A document processing methodaccording to claim 1, further comprising a step of managing a changehistory of said shared information and document and a step of subjectingthe shared information to a consistency processing operation to generateconsistency-processed shared information already subjected to saidconsistency processing operation, and wherein said version managementstep stores in said memory said generated shared information andgenerated document as the document of a new version, creates versioninformation for each of the shared information and document and storesthe version information in said memory, said consistency processingstep, when said shared information is generated and a character stringor structure is already changed after editing of said document,maintains contents of said character string in its state after thechange and returns the structure change to its state at the time ofcreating the document, generates shared information satisfying itsconsistency, and, when it is desired to display or print said documentin said output step, embeds said consistency-satisfied sharedinformation in the document.
 3. A document processing method accordingto claim 1, further comprising a step of managing a change history ofsaid shared information and document and a step of subjecting the sharedinformation to a consistency processing operation to generateconsistency-processed shared information already subjected to saidconsistency processing operation, and wherein said version managementstep stores in said memory said generated shared information andgenerated document as the document of a new version, creates versioninformation for each of the shared information and document and storesthe version information in said memory, said consistency processingstep, when said shared information is generated and a character stringor structure is already changed after editing of said structureddocument, acquires the latest shared information and the sharedinformation at the time of creating the document to be displayed orprinted, compares the acquired both shared information to extract astructure changed location, and, when the structure change is extracted,returns the changed structure to its state at the time of creating thedocument in the latest snared information to generateconsistency-satisfied shared information, and, when it is desired todisplay or print said document in said output step, embeds saidconsistency-satisfied shared information in the document.
 4. A documentprocessing method according claim 3, wherein, in the case where thestructure is changed in said consistency processing step, the structureis deleted from the latest shared information when contents of thechange corresponds to insertion of the structure in the sharedinformation at the document creation time, or, when the contents of thechange corresponds to deletion of the structure from the sharedinformation at the document creation time, the structure is inserted inthe latest shared information, or, when the contents of the changecorresponds to exchange of the structure of the shared information atthe document creation time, the structure after the exchange is deletedfrom the latest shared information and the structure before the exchangeis inserted to thereby generate said consistency-satisfied sharedinformation.
 5. A document processing method according to claim 1,wherein said shared information block generating step comprisesassigning each term to a node of the structured document and assigningeach term of the term combination to a sub-node of a node assigned tothe term combination, and said structured document editing stepcomprises describing a link for each term with an identifier of the nodeand describing a link of each term of the term combination with anidentifier of the node of the term combination and a relative path fromsaid node.
 6. A document processing method according to claim 1, whereinsaid term combination includes a person's name or a department to whichthe person belongs.
 7. A system for processing a document including aprocessor, a memory and a terminal device, comprising: means forgenerating a shared information block as a set of shared informationappearing in a plurality of documents; means for storing the generatedshared information block in a first memory; means for describing a linkto the shared information in the documents; means provided at theterminal device for storing the link-described documents in a secondmemory; and means for reading out from said memories said generatedshared information and described document, embedding the sharedinformation in the link-described document according to the linksdescribed therein and said generated shared information, and generatingand outputting information indicative of a document having the sharedinformation embedded therein; wherein said document is a structureddocument, said shared information block generating means generates assaid shared information a term including an abbreviation or a coinage,or a term combination, or both an abbreviation or a coinage and a termcombination, and edits the shared information into structure documentsdepending on the types of the shared information.
 8. A documentprocessing system according to claim 7, further comprising means formanaging a change history of said shared information and structureddocument and means for subjecting the shared information to aconsistency processing operation to generate consistency-processedshared information already subjected to said consistency processingoperation, and wherein said version management means stores in saidmemory said generated shared information and generated structureddocument attached by information indicative of a new version, createsversion information for each of the shared information and structureddocument and stores the version information in said memory, saidconsistency processing means, when said shared information is generatedand a character string or structure is already changed after editing ofsaid structured document, maintains contents of said character string inits state before the change and returns the structure change to itsstate at the time of creating the document, generates shared informationsatisfying its consistency, and, when it is desired for said outputmeans to display or print said structured document, embeds saidconsistency-satisfied shared information in the structured document. 9.A document processing system according to claim 7, wherein said sharedinformation block generating means assigns each term to a node of thestructured document, assigns each term of the term combination to asub-node of a node assigned to the term combination, describes a linkfor each term with an identifier of the node, and describes a link ofeach term of the term combination with an identifier of the node of theterm combination and a relative path from said node.
 10. A documentprocessing system according to claim 7, wherein said term combinationincludes a person's name or a department to which the person belongs.11. A computer readable recording medium storing a document processingprogram implemented by a computer, said program executing the steps of:generating as said shared information a term combination of such a termas abbreviation or coinage and such a term as person's name or belongingdepartment and edits the shared information into structured documentsdepending on the types of the information; storing the generated sharedinformation block in a first memory; describing a link to the sharedinformation in the documents; storing the link-described documents in asecond memory; and reading out from said memories said generated sharedinformation and described document, embedding the shared information inthe link-described document according to the links described therein andsaid generated shared information, and generating and outputtinginformation indicative of a document having the shared informationembedded therein.
 12. A computer readable recording medium according toclaim 11, said program further executing the steps of: storing in saidmemories said generated shared information and said generated documentattached by information indicative of a new version, generating versioninformation for each of the shared information and structured document,storing the version information in said memory, and managing a changehistory of said shared information and documents; and when it is desiredfor the display or print means to display or print the structureddocument, selecting the shared information of the latest version createdprior to a date and hour of creation of the structured document on thebasis of said version information and embedding the selected sharedinformation in said structured document.
 13. A computer readablerecording medium according to claim 11, said program further executingthe steps of: storing in said memories said generated shared informationand said generated document attached by information indicative of a newversion, generating version information for each of the sharedinformation and structured document, storing the version information insaid memory, and managing a change history of said shared informationand documents; when said shared information is generated and a characterstring or structure is already changed after editing of said structureddocument, maintaining contents of said character string in its statebefore the change, and returning the structure change to its state atthe time of creating the document, to generate shared informationsatisfying its consistency; and when it is desired to display or printsaid structured document in said output step, embedding saidconsistency-satisfied shared information in the structured document. 14.A computer readable recording medium according to claim 11, wherein saidshared information block generating step comprises assigning each termto a node of the structured document and assigning each term of the termcombination to a sub-node of a node assigned to the term combination,and said structured document editing step comprises describing a linkfor each term with an identifier of the node and describing a link ofeach term of the term combination with an identifier of the node of theterm combination and a relative path from said node.
 15. Acomputer-implemented method for processing a structured documentcomprising the steps of: generating as a shared information blockinformation frequently appearing in a plurality of structured documents;storing the generated shared information block in a first memory;listing said stored shared information up depending upon the types ofinformation; editing said structured documents and describing a link tosaid shared information selected from said listed-up edited sharedinformation, into said structured document; storing the link-describedstructured documents in a second memory; and reading out from said firstand second memories said generated shared information and saidlink-described structured document, embedding the shared information inthe link-described structured document according to the links describedtherein and said generated shared information, and generating andoutputting information indicative of a structured document having theshared information embedded therein; wherein said information blockgenerating step generates as said shared information a term including anabbreviation or a coinage, or a term combination, or both anabbreviation or a coinage and a term combination, and edits the sharedinformation into structure documents depending on the types of theshared information.
 16. A document processing method according to claim15, wherein said shared information block generating step comprisesassigning each term to a node of the structured document and assigningeach term of the term combination to a sub-node of a node assigned tothe term combination, and said structured document editing stepcomprises describing a link for each term with an identifier of the nodeand describing a link of each term of the term combination with anidentifier of the node of the term combination and a relative path fromsaid node.
 17. A document processing method according to claim 15,wherein said term combination includes a person's name or a departmentto which the person belongs.